Relationships with a loved one is a special gift. It gives us space to grow and develop to allow love to flourish. It allows a special person to share your journey upon this earth and create a shared vision together. Your relationship also holds a mirror up to your insecurities, wounds, pains of the past and deepest fears. You get to only really get to know another once the honeymoon period is over, when the masks begin to slip and the fears, judgements, and insecurities begin to surface.

​When you are open and honest with yourself and your partner it allows time for growth, healing and working together as a team. For some this is truly frightening as they prefer to hold on tightly to the ways of the past regardless of how uncomfortable and dysfunctional they are. They project onto the other and blame them for their misfortune in life and their love becomes conditional.

​All of this is created by the ego. On one level it is used to keep you safe and at arm's length. At another level it keeps the relationship stagnant and stuck. ​Here is a beautiful piece by Rev. Diane Berke which illustrates how the ego works in relationship and how it blocks love from flourishing

Vows of the Ego

I vow to turn you into a symbol of my sense of unworthiness, my sense of not being good enough, and to use you to justify my decision to forget who I really am.

I vow to make you into an idol – to see you as the source of my happiness, security, sense of well-being, sense of worth and peace.

Therefore, I vow to blame you for many feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, lack of fulfilment, anger and discontentment that I feel.

I vow to use our relationship to practice and perfect my skills of judgment, projection and giving to get, and to re-enforce my perception of myself as a lacking, powerless victim.

I vow to make the form of our relationship more important that its content, and to focus my energy and attention on whether or not you are living up to my needs as I have defined them.

As long as you fulfil the demands and desires of my ego, I will love you and be nice to you. When you don’t, I will feel justified in criticising and attacking you, manipulating you, and trying to change or control you.

I vow to use our relationship to reinforce my belief that safety lies in separation, in keeping secrets, in being defensive and attacking when I am scared.

I vow to emerge from our relationship more angry, despairing, cynical, defensive, hopeless and convinced of my guilt and unworthiness (and yours) than when I entered it!

Just take a moment to consider your relationship

Once you read this just pause for a moment and breathe. Which vow relates to you and your relationship? Which one is holding you back? Are you ready to be open and honest with yourself? Are you ready to change your impact in the relationship - to relate in a new way? It takes courage, action and love to change your relationship.

Linda Connors is a hypnotherapist and coach helping people break dysfunctional relationship patterns, grow and enter a new place of love, kindness, compassion and honesty. For more information or to book an appointment with Linda please call 075 3421 3557